Till Death Do We Meet Again
by wickedsistah1024
Summary: Those who have seen Soul Society, encountered hollows and met shinigami know that there is so much more for a person after death, that "eternity" gains a whole new significance and "Till Death Do Us Part" loses its meaning.


**Disclaimer: **I do not own BLEACH. And I AM an IchiRuki fan.

Warning: OOC-ness, angst, grammar and spelling errors (I am not a native English-speaker)

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><p><strong>-'Till Death Do We Meet Again-<strong>

wickedsistah1024's 7th IchiRuki oneshot

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><p>X<p>

I, _(Name)_,  
>Take you, <em>(Name)<em>,  
>To be my lawfully wedded <em>(wifehusband)_;

X

Three years had passed since they last saw each other.

It was a night she could still clearly recall. He had told her that maybe, just maybe, they should give _them_ a shot. It wasn't the first time he had tried to broach this subject, but her answer was the same every time.

"_We can't. Soul Society will not allow it. Not while you are still human."_

And that was the end of that discussion. This concern had come up lots of times before, and each time, her defenses became weaker and weaker. There was nothing more she wanted to do than give in. But she couldn't.

It wasn't like Soul Society made this rule for more drama, forbidding technically "dead" people from fooling around and freely breaking the hearts of humans over and over again, and then have their memories erased afterwards. It wasn't like that—Seireitei feared more that the technically "dead" people would find someone worth fighting Soul Society for, make them go into hiding, mate, produce more spiritually aware beings who have the ability to affect their surroundings, attract hollows, get people in danger…upset the balance of life and death. This was why it was a strict rule never to allow a shinigami to go gallivanting with live human beings.

It wasn't as if they were thinking of Kurosaki Ichigo when they made this rule. It just so happened that he had the ability to do all that the rule wanted to avoid—fight Soul Society for his lover, hide from their radars like his father did, mate and have children with massive amounts of reiatsu like himself, let these children awaken the slumbering spiritual awareness of people around them…

Still, Rukia knew that this rule, though made thousands of years before Kurosaki Ichigo was even born, would be most strictly implemented when it came to the powerful shinigami daikō. How many times had she gone to the vast library of the Kuchiki clan, reading records and ancient books, hoping to find an excuse…an exception to the rule.

There were none, besides Kurosaki Isshin who had been lucky enough not to get tracked.

But she couldn't gamble his life and so many others on something as unpredictable as luck. So all she could do was wait. Wait for Ichigo to live his life and die and join her in Soul Society. It was proving to be an arduous task. To her, but most especially to Ichigo.

Rukia being a shinigami made time a slightly more irrelevant issue than it was to humans. After all, a shinigami can live thousands of years, still look the same, still like the same things, act the same way…

But it wasn't like that for humans. They could have their lives planned as early as adolescence, and the timeframe was usually five to six decades, and that was it for them. To a shinigami who was hundreds of years old, this was not a concern, but to humans, a decade could change a lot.

And it was hard, watching a twenty-two year old Ichigo, now an intern at the local hospital, live his day-to-day life. Whenever Rukia was in the human world, her concept of time changed to fit that of a human's. A day was suddenly too long; a month, too lengthy. She didn't like watching Ichigo get up in the morning, go to work, reject offers from his friends for dinner or karaoke, all in the hopes of her visiting the real world.

"_Sorry, can't come tonight. I'm expecting someone."_

She had watched this scene play over and over on her perch in a rooftop near the hospital. After work, Ichigo would always come straight home, hoping that she was somehow relieved of her vice-captain duties and allowed to visit him. Most of the time, the hope was in vain, but there were some rare occasions where he would come home to his apartment and find her sitting on his bed with a smile.

She was unhappy to see Ichigo holding back from enjoying his life the way humans his age should—going out with friends, seeing his family, meeting new people. On weekends, he would stay home, his window open, his gaze hopeful as he watched the clouds roll by. The first few times, she would mock him for having no life, and he would always say, _"Che. I want to rest as much as I can on weekends."_

But she knew. He was waiting for her to come.

Ichigo was only twenty-two. He had at least about three or four more decades ahead of him to live. With the way he was going, there was a possibility that he would have to live it alone.

And Rukia hated herself for doing this to him.

She never experienced how it was to be a living, young adult. But the manga she had read told her that it was the happiest time of one's life. It was when one experiences the joys of life, without the trouble of obligation. And she could see that Ichigo was clearly not enjoying his.

She told herself time and time again that maybe, her presence was enough to make him happy, because whenever she was around, his spirits were lifted. But she couldn't be around all the time, not when her world was different from his, and her world required her to be in it most of the time.

A soul was going to be reborn over and over again. But it would never remember its past life. She had no idea how many times Ichigo's or her soul was reborn; but she wanted this lifetime they had to count. She wanted Ichigo to live his human life happily—who knew how long it would be for him to be reborn as a human again? It might take hundreds, thousands of years. She wanted him to have the best of his human life. Even if that meant not being a part of it.

And so she steeled herself, as Ichigo cooked them a dinner for two in his small apartment after work, that tonight, she would reject him _one last time._

"So, anything interesting happened lately?"

Ichigo chewed his mouthful as he thought earnestly. "Hmm, well my internship is ending soon. The hospital has showed interest in making me a regular."

Rukia nodded as she played with the food in her bowl, her eyes set on the wooden table. "What else?"

Ichigo scratched the back of his head. "Well, Chad called me yesterday. The guys met during the weekend—you know, Ishida, Inoue, Tatsuki, Mizuiro, Keigo."

The grip on her chopsticks tightened, but the action was lost on Ichigo who continued eating his dinner.

"And why were you not with them?" Rukia knew the answer of course.

Ichigo shrugged nonchalantly, as though the subject didn't matter at all. "Thought you would come."

_But you didn't_, it was left unspoken. And Rukia knew how much he would have wanted to see his friends.

That was the last straw. Rukia stopped pretending to be interested with dinner and dropped her chopsticks on the table.

"Ichigo, we have to stop doing this."

An orange brow arched. "Doing what?"

Rukia's violet eyes stared straight in his brown orbs. "This. Meeting like this, you waiting all the time. This, whatever this is."

And she didn't even know what it was they had, because she was damn sure they weren't in a romantic relationship, or else Soul Society would have been hot on her tracks right now.

Ichigo stopped eating. It seemed as though he stopped breathing as well. That wasn't a good sign. He was angry. He was _mad._

"What are you talking about?" His question was relayed in a deadly whisper.

Her gaze did not waver even as he matched its intensity. "Kisama*. Start living your life. Fool around, go out, make lots of friends without having to constantly worry if I would suddenly show up in your apartment or not. I want you to think of yourself, and enjoy being a human. I know you have dreams like everyone else, and I want you to achieve them. _All of them_."

Her eyes softened as she reached her hand out to touch his. "And I promise you, when the time comes, I myself will be there to get you."

X

To have and to hold,  
>X<p>

That was three years ago. She never came back to the real world so he would stop waiting. She focused her energy on her tasks for the 13th division, training as hard as she could. The two years passed by pretty quickly, as did the other years when she was in Soul Society busying herself with her mundane tasks. She hoped Ichigo was doing what she wanted him—have fun, be with his friends and family, have a human girlfriend if that was what he wanted. She could be okay with that. The length of a human life, after all, was nothing compared to the eternity they would share afterwards. He should have all those years doing what he wanted—and finding out what he would want to do for the eternity after.

So it came as a shock to her when one afternoon, as she was finishing the paperwork her sickly captain could not complete, an elegantly sealed envelope made its way to her table. She thanked Kurumadani-san who dropped the letter on his way to file a report on his mission, resisting the urge to ask how Karakurachō was. No, how _Ichigo_ was. But she steeled herself—she wouldn't meddle with his business, Soul Society has meddled with it enough.

She looked at the envelope curiously, wondering who could have sent it—her heart wished it was Ichigo, but the possibility of it being any of her other friends, or even the other Kurosakis were just as big. She slowly tore off the elegant seal and pulled out a…what was it, a card? She read it loudly.

"You are cordially invited to celebrate the wedding of Inoue Orihime and…"

Her heart stopped. Because right next to where her lips stopped reading was the name of the boy, no man, that haunted her thoughts. The man who owned her heart and so much more.

Kurosaki Ichigo.

And suddenly, her heart started hammering in her chest.

X

From this day forward,  
>X<p>

It was a three-day celebration—a party happening on the first night, a rehearsal dinner on the second, and the wedding proper on the last day.

She stood by the shadows on the first night, watching people she didn't know and watching people she was familiar with mingle and enjoy the food and drinks as they chatted about how gorgeous the couple was, and how completely meant to be they were. She was perplexed—for days before the celebration, she thought (hoped) the thing was a joke. A cruel one, but a joke nonetheless. Standing by a telephone pole near the open garden where the party was being held at, she observed how people were taking this news. Most of them wore expressions saying _"it's about time"_ and _"took you long enough"_. She could not understand what was happening. Sure, she said he should go fool around and enjoy his life to its greatest, but to get married? Did he even understand the full extent of it? And to Inoue, of all people?

She came back the night of the rehearsal dinner, wearing a simple lavender strapless dress with a low back, walking around the garden aimlessly. She needed to talk to Ichigo, and soon. She stared around the area, noting how beautiful the decorations were. There were so many flowers and flowing cloths, it was all too dreamy.

"Oi, Rukia!"

She turned to the sound of Renji's voice to find him sitting on a table with their other friends: Ishida, Chad, Tatsuki, Mizuiro, Keigo. She slowly made her way to them, noting how good each of them looked all dressed up. This would have been how she wanted them to look at _her_ wedding rehearsal.

"Glad you made it, Kuchiki." There was a tense smile on Tatsuki's face as she greeted the petite shinigami who only nodded in response.

She could feel eyes gazing at her, trying to decipher the expressionless expression on her face. There was an almost palpable discomfort at the table, but it was broken when another person joined in.

"Yo."

And just like that, the tension broke around Rukia, as her tablemates stood up and congratulated the man who spoke. It seemed as though they weren't able to spend time with him the night before as well.

She could hear the laughter and practically see the smiles on their faces as she continued to stare blankly at the floating candle inside the glass bowl—the table's centerpiece. Silence soon ensued and Rukia could hear footsteps coming closer and closer.

"You wanna take a walk?"

X

For better, for worse,  
>X<p>

"I'm glad you made it. I thought you wouldn't come. You weren't there yesterday."

They stood by a lovely man-made pond, watching as the moonlight was reflected in the crystal clear water, illuminating the lovely koi swimming around as if without a care in the world.

Rukia's hand closed in a fist on her lap as she sat on a nearby bench, wrinkling the skirt of her dress. She took a deep breath, but could only speak a few words. "How long?"

She could sense Ichigo turning to look at her, while her she continued to stare into space. "Two years."

Two years? That was it? Two years ago, she was doing paperwork for her division. Two years later, she knew she would still be doing paperwork for her division. And here he was, getting married to a woman he had only been with (romantically) for two years?

And then it hit her. She was in the living world, and suddenly two years seemed like a lifetime. There were relationships in the shoujo manga she read that couldn't even last for a year, and yet they were thankful for it. In the human world, a relationship lasting for two years and more was a miracle not everyone was blessed with. And for the first time since she arrived in the human world she looked at him, the twenty-five year old Ichigo, and Rukia could finally see the changes their three years apart had brought about. There he was, wearing a red long-sleeved collared shirt and a silver tie, with a black suit jacket and dress pants, looking even more handsome than she remembered. His scowl was softer now, as well as his eyes. His close proximity with the sweet and gentle Inoue had probably done wonders to his temper. There was a slight upturn in his lips, and he looked truly content, if not happy.

She willed herself not to cry. No, she couldn't—wouldn't—ruin this. This was their night, and she was privileged enough to be a part of it. It was probably why Tatsuki was so tense around her earlier—his oldest friend probably knew about her feelings, and deemed her a threat to her best friend's happiness.

It wasn't like Rukia never knew of Inoue's feelings. She had known since that time she had posed a student in their high school. She had always thought the girl would get over her feelings soon. It was probably just a school girl crush after all. And now Rukia berated herself for underestimating a human girl's feelings. If she, a shinigami with no high regard for time, could stay in love with the same person for years, who was she to judge the ability of a human girl—who treats a year like it was eternity—to do the same?

With the human mindset, Rukia would commend Inoue's strength to continue on loving the same man for so many years, even though they weren't together for most of it. The girl was willing to spend her few remaining human years pining for a man who wouldn't even look at her in the same way. Rukia could not boast of the same sacrifice, because she knew she had a few hundred more years waiting for her, and thus in comparison, did not value time as highly as the human girl.

An affectionate hand on her head shook her out of her reverie, and she looked up only to find warm brown eyes staring straight into her own as he crouched so they would meet, eye to eye.

"She loves me…I know she does. And since you said there can never be anything between us as long as I'm alive, I figured, why not give it a shot?"

He looked at her with those smouldering brown eyes, too much wisdom swimming in its depths than a young man of his age should ever have. She understood what he was saying—_let her have me in life, and you can have me in death._ How ironic was it that behind the wisdom in his eyes was a naïve, innocent boy who would gladly give his everything to make sure the people around him were happy?

But it wasn't like that. Not like that at all. He couldn't just marry someone in life and disregard them after he died. _No. Ichigo. Don't._

He straightened up from his bent position slightly ruffling her hair. Not too much though, because he could see that she took the time to arrange it carefully so she would look good in his wedding rehearsal.

Ah, wedding. Who would've thought he'd ever have one where _she_ wasn't the bride? Orihime was a great woman though, and he couldn't imagine anyone else he could spend the rest of his human life with than his good friend.

His head turned towards the still lively dinner a little ways away from where they were. He caught a glimpse of his sisters and took a step to approach them when a hand fisted on the back of his black suit stopped him. He turned to look back at the silent woman.

It was now or never. She had to tell him. Tell him that it wouldn't work out—this plan of his being with someone for the rest of his human life, and then being with her in the afterlife. Sure, she would've wanted him to meet girls, but never a long-lasting relationship. Not this type of close companionship that would result to a happy family, and a large house with a dog and white picket fences, and growing old together.

She hated herself for having these selfish thoughts. He deserved to be happy. He deserved to have a great life as a human. But she couldn't help it. It was a mistake. Because once he married her, there was no turning back.

After all, when you have encountered shinigami, Soul Society and near-death so many times, the phrase _"Till Death Do Us Part"_ loses its meaning.

"Ichigo!"

The sweet and gentle voice could only belong to one girl—no, woman—and the man she called out to turned his head back to find Inoue Orihime, soon to be Mrs. Kurosaki Orihime, making her way towards them, his two sisters in tow.

Rukia could only watch as a bright smile lit up Inoue's face as their eyes met, and it was only then did the shinigami realize that a fake smile was plastered on her own lips. Her grip on Ichigo's suit jacket loosened slowly, as the caramel-haired woman walked bouncily towards the bench.

"Kuchiki-san! I'm so happy you're here!" Rukia was surprised to find herself in a tight, but warm embrace. She could feel the genuine happiness exuding from her friend at her presence, and she flinched, suddenly feeling ill for thinking bad thoughts.

"I told you she'd come, didn't I?" Rukia's violet eyes gazed at the man who now stood by his sisters, watching the scene with a smile.

_No, no. This is wrong. This is all wrong. Ichigo—_

"Please be my maid of honor."

And the world came to a screeching halt.

She didn't have the heart to take away all those human dreams that was now within the reach of his fingertips. Who could tell what would happen in the next few years? And maybe he would forget the foolishness that he once thought was everlasting love for the plain, loud, petite shinigami who, on the night of his engagement party, gave up any hopes of a happy eternity.

X

For richer, for poorer,  
>X<p>

It had been forty years. She never once came back to the world of the living, choosing instead to cut ties that bound her to humans. No news, no visits, nothing.

But now, forty years since she walked away after that goddamned wedding where she had been maid of honor, she had to return. To fulfill a promise made between comrades.

Just the day before, Kurumadani-san—Ichigo used to called him Imoyama-san (ah memories, memories, why choose to resurface now?)—filed a report saying his _charge_ was bound to leave the human world in a day's time, and requested the presence of his long-time friend to retrieve his soul. She was there when the report was made, and everyone in that meeting—the captain commander, the captains and her fellow lieutenants—knew exactly who this _friend_ was.

Soul Society had started tracking shinigami daikō Kurosaki Ichigo's health since it steadily started getting worse a year before. While Soul Society might have allowed the orange-haired once-ryōka to live his human life freely, they had every intention of giving him a position once he entered Seireitei. And so his possible time of death was tracked for over a year. The Shinigami Research and Development Institute had predicted an earlier ETA to Seireirei, but because it was Kurosaki Ichigo, he just had to prove them wrong one more time.

And so a year went on, and now he just couldn't hold on to dear life anymore. In a matter of moments, Kurosaki Ichigo was going die.

And Kuchiki Rukia was assigned the painful task of sending his soul to Seireitei.

X

In sickness and in health,  
>X<p>

He smiled the brightest he could muster while lying weakly on his hospital bed, watching through his window as the brilliant light shone through the familiar shoji doors he hadn't seen in ages. Beside his bed stood his spiritually aware family—his wife and three children, who were all adults and professionals now—as they waited for the visitor to enter through the window.

While his family was aware that its pillar wasn't exactly going to cease existing—as normal people thought when they die—it didn't stop his youngest daughter, Masaki , from bawling her eyes out as she felt her father's reiatsu fluctuate wildly and then steadily drop. Her mother, who was watching the scene unfold with sad, but understanding gray eyes, tried to console her youngest child as her emotionally stronger other two siblings watched on in sympathy.

The room was filled with the beeping of the electrocardiograph in regular intervals. A sandaled foot settled on the windowsill, and Ichigo turned to regard his family members with a silent goodbye. His weak hands clenching the blanket covering his body weakened its grasp, as the intervals between the beeping of the ECG lessened. Masaki's sobbing increased as Orihime tightened her embrace around her daughter, and all of them closed their eyes as the machine finally flatlined.

It didn't take long for a young soul—probably around 17 or 18, his age when he regained his shinigami powers—sat up from the unmoving human body on the bed. The plus soul, who was wearing a standard shihakushō, glimpsed at his family with a smile, before giving his full attention to the shinigami crouching by the window with a solemn expression on her face. The nurses and doctors—who apparently were not gifted with spiritual awareness—entered the room and ushered his family out as they tried their hardest to revive his human body, repeating the arduous process of defibrillation over and over again. He looked at them with a face torn between amusement and pity, knowing the efforts were in vain. He shook his head as he looked away; he had other important matters to attend to. He stared back at the shinigami who had come—as she had promised almost a lifetime ago—to take him to Soul Society. She now stood in front of him, looking exactly as she did all those decades ago, her arm band bearing her division's insignia and number gleaming in the sunlight that passed through the window. He raised his arm in greeting.

"Yo."

In the moment it took for him to blink his eyes, Rukia had already unsheathed her zanpakutō and tapped his forehead with its hilt, catching him off-guard. His brown eyes widened in confusion—he didn't expect her to come greet him with a great big smile and a warm embrace, but he was much too perplexed at her lack of response to anything.

_No matter, _he thought as his body glowed, preparing him for his journey to Soul Society, _we have an eternity ahead of us to fix this problem._

Rukia didn't turn to watch the jigokuchō as it flew away.

X

To love and to cherish,

X

The events following his arrival in Seireitei was a blur to Ichigo. He was welcomed into Soul Society, given a position (he was to be a captain after a period of re-training, much to Renji's playful chagrin), assigned a squad, given a place of residence and briefed about the rules of Seireitei (which he only half-listened to).

It took him weeks to get the hang of it—it being "being dead"—and he was bombarded with tasks left, right, front and back. The teenager him would have gladly argued with anyone who gave him too much paperwork using his sword, but years of being the head of the family had nurtured in him a deep sense of responsibility.

He finally got a breather two months into his "death", and he was mentally cursing his colleagues for the intentional torture he went through during his first couple of months in Seireitei. He was sure those bastards had been planning (and piling up paperwork for him to do) to give so much work once he arrived in Soul Society, as some sort of retribution for when he beat them all during the time he saved Rukia.

And speaking of Rukia, how come that midget never once came to visit him? Not that he would have had the time to actually _talk_ to her—and talk they would, he was so damn sure of that. It was disconcerting though, that he very rarely saw the petite shinigami. And when he would, she'd always say, _"Next time, when you're not too busy."_ It almost felt like she was…avoiding him.

But why would she? Why would she, when the reunion she had once told him they should "save for later" was finally here, right in their grasp?

Whatever her reason was, he would find out. He convinced himself he would, as he made his way to her division, hoping he could take a few minutes of her precious time so they could talk. Of course he knew she was busy with the affairs of her own division (like his vice-captain probably was at the moment, having been left by the division captain), but he had no other choice but do it now, knowing in the next few days, maybe weeks, he would be busy again, and she could use this as an excuse not to talk to him.

As he stood outside the door to her "office", having just gotten permission from her captain to interrupt her work, he thought about what he was going to say. Sure, he had waited for this moment for about four decades, but what exactly did he want to happen?

As he slid the door open, he saw her kneeling quietly, her hands on top of her wooden table, as if waiting for company. She probably felt his reiatsu as soon as he arrived at the thirteenth division, and knew that the time had come for them to talk.

This was supposed to be a joyous moment, seeing a friend you have not heard from in years. Why did it feel like he was going to be executed? And why was she wearing such a calm expression when he could read, as clear as day like he used to, her inner turmoil? What had happened to her in the years they haven't seen each other?

"Tawake! If you're going to come in, then don't waste your time standing by the door."

That broke him out of his trance, and the familiar insult brought about some semblance of tranquillity to his troubled soul. He took a step in and slid the door closed.

He hovered over her, not knowing whether to sit beside her or in front of her, before finally deciding to take things slowly (there was no telling when her short, short fuse would blow) and sitting directly in front of her so he could stare straight into her eyes as they talked.

To his surprise, where he expected to see the usual warmth when he looked into her eyes, he saw…nothing. Her eyes were devoid of emotion, and yet Ichigo knew it was only a wall to hide her true feelings. He couldn't help but feel hurt—she was trying to shut him out. Why though? They waited all these years to see each other. He had done all he could to live his life as a human as she had asked, even though his heart continued to pine for her even after all these years.

His fists clenched as he locked himself in a staring contest with her, trying to break each other's will, not wanting to start a conversation that was way overdue, not knowing what exactly should be discussed.

Ichigo's temper proved to be much shorter than Rukia's, because he soon gave up. "Rukia! What's wrong with you?"

Rukia's eyes narrowed. She hated herself for acting this way, but she had to make her point across. _They_ never were, and never would be. And he needed to understand that his delusion of a happy eternity together was never going to happen. Her eyes travelled for a brief second towards the document she had just finished reading a few moments prior to his arrival. It was a report about a dying human whose soul would be retrieved tomorrow. She would have to pass on this one.

Ichigo was fed up with the lack of verbal response, and he suddenly felt tired. The onslaught of work, adjusting to being "dead", and the stress of his unresolved issues with Rukia had finally caught up with him, and he felt very, very tired.

"What happened all these years?" His voice was a soft whisper. "What happened to you? To us?" His head was now lowered, his hair hiding the brown eyes she loved.

Gathering her resolve for the huge blow, Rukia stood up and presented him her back, not wanting to let him see even a crack on her façade.

"We grew apart."

There was shocked silence. And Rukia hated herself more for how broken his voice sounded afterwards.

"But you told me…that you'd wait for me. For the day I cease to be human." It reminded her of all those times she had seen him so broken, so lifeless. It used to be her job to get him out of his funk. It used to her job to encourage him, give him strength. How she wished they could go back to those times, those simple times.

"I made a mistake." And she did—it was telling him to love his life as normal as he could, which to him included getting married and having a family to spend his human life with. "I never should have, in any way, implied that I will wait for you. Because I couldn't. Forty years is a long time, Ichigo. There's only so much I can take."

She knew Ichigo didn't completely buy that excuse.

"I did what you told me to. I lived my human life as any other man would. I didn't rush death. And now I'm ready, I'm ready and no one can tell us we can't. I'm not human anymore, Rukia."

"That isn't how it works tawake!" Rukia gave up all hopes of a calm discussion. It was never in their nature, not when they were facing each other. "You got married. You had children. You have a family, bakamono! What about Ino—Orihime? You can't just die and forget she ever existed. She was your wife, Ichigo!"

There was realization in Ichigo's brown eyes, but it was obvious he tried to hinder it. "But…I'm already here. With _you_."

Rukia took a deep breath. It all boiled down to this one simple thing. "And so will she."

Another beat of silence. "What?"

"By noon tomorrow, a shinigami will be dispatched to Karakuracho for the retrieval of a soul."

Ichigo's eyes widened as he stared at her defeated violets, finally absorbing this bit of information, and everything that it entailed. The realization that the hopes and dreams of an afterlife he had waited decades for would never come to fruition. He couldn't believe how stupid he had been. He was too drunk in the thought of the far future that he didn't see what was immediately ahead of him.

"Tomorrow, your wife will be joining us here in Soul Society."

X

'Till death do us part.

X

* * *

><p>*Kisama – a very informalrude way of saying "You". This is how Rukia normally refers to Ichigo when she isn't calling him by his name. In modern Japan, it can also mean "You bastard." Tawake and Bakamono, if I'm correct, both mean "Idiot/Stupid".

**This is how I'd imagine them to look like on the rehearsal dinner. Credits to the artist. :D (remove the spaces! :D) images4 . fanpop . com /image/photos/19100000/IchiRuki-ichiruki-19165952-1600-1040 . jpg

**Yep, the abrupt ending was intentional, **kind of like how the whole story (each part) was written in an abrupt manner**.** I'm sorry (I might change this in the future, who knows?). In the meantime, **you are all free to hate me** (YES I HAVE TRIED TO PREPARE MYSELF KNOWING SO MANY PEOPLE WILL HATE ME FOR THIS). This is the most unfulfilling fanfiction I ever wrote, and I promise never to write something similar to it again. The idea just bugged me and **wouldn't let me sleep peacefully**, so I had to write it down and get it off my mind. TBH, I am nervous about the amount of negative reactions I will receive, so please, do not flame me. I will gladly accept constructive criticism, but please do not flame me (I just celebrated my birthday last Monday, will that stop you from flaming? DX).

I meant this to be a lightly satirical piece to be taken with a grain of salt. **To know why I wrote this piece, please check out my profile (I really hope you do).** I had the whole reason (rant?) written in there and I didn't want it to take so much space in this fic.

Anyhoo, I haven't written a oneshot this long in quite some time. I originally planned it to be a short fic of just a little bit over a thousand words, but as I was writing, my fingers went on and on with typing, and I couldn't help it. If it makes you feel any better, my heart broke when I wrote this, too. I really hope that even though you didn't like how things went (because I'm sure I didn't), you still liked the piece as a whole. Anyways, feel free to rant in your review.

Thank you for reading! Have a great day everyone!


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